Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 5 of 5
-
ItemInvestigating the student experience of internationalization at an Australian university( 2020)This thesis explores the student experience of an internationalized Australian university through the lens of Internationalization at Home (IaH) practices. Over the last quarter of a century, Australian universities have adapted to an increasingly globalized world by implementing comprehensive internationalization strategies that make the universities more desirable to and more applicable within a global society. A substantial portion of these strategies depend on student-centered actions and activities, such as students interacting with and learning from peers from diverse backgrounds. However, the implementation and effectiveness of these IaH strategies have faced consistent challenges, including negative responses among the student body: resentment towards peers, a lack of intercultural interaction, and consistent frustration with multicultural groupwork. As students’ responses pose some of the key challenges to IaH, understanding students’ experiences of IaH practices would offer helpful insight into how to move forward with IaH. However, research into how students experience an internationalized university is limited, despite the significant role students play in the implementation and success of IaH practices. There is a particular lack of understanding around domestic students’ conceptualizations and experiences of internationalized universities, even though they comprise the majority of the Australian university student population. This thesis aims to provide better understanding of the challenges facing IaH aims by investigating students’ experience of an internationalized university, incorporating both international and domestic students’ experiences. The research study presented in this thesis is guided by the main research question, “What influences students’ experience of an internationalized university?” The study adopts a single-institution case study methodology, and three different faculties within the institution are included to consider different teaching contexts and student populations. A mixed-methods approach is taken, and data are collected through an electronic student survey, one-on-one student interviews, interviews with the heads of each of the three bachelor’s programs, and analysis of university website messaging about the student experience. Findings suggest that students’ experience is influenced primarily by a misalignment between their conceptualizations and expectations of an internationalized university on one hand and their experiences of that internationalized university on the other. Students expect that an internationalized university will offer frequent, natural interaction, often in the form of intercultural interaction with peers or in-class discussion; yet, they do not often find this to be true. This thesis argues for a reframing of the role of interpersonal interaction in shaping students’ internationalized university experience, primarily because it predominates students’ conceptualizations and expectations of an internationalized university. The thesis further argues that such misalignment may partially explain students’ resistance to certain IaH practices. It is thereby proposed that incorporating more interpersonal and intercultural interaction into the formal curriculum and reducing structural barriers to interaction would improve students’ experience of internationalized universities and better support the aims of IaH.
-
ItemInternationalisation of higher education in Russia: looking East( 2019)Internationalisation has become central on the agendas of higher education institutions and national governments across the world. Despite the increasing number of countries engaged in the process of internationalisation, to date, most of the research on this phenomenon has been dominated by developed Anglophone nations. Higher education institutions in these countries act as global knowledge centres and are arguably well-placed to advance their internationalisation goals (Altbach, Reisberg, & Rumbley, 2009; Klemenčič, 2017), whereas higher education institutions situated in the academic periphery, face numerous challenges in internationalising their institutions. While there has been a slowly growing body of research on internationalisation of higher education in emerging economies, few studies have examined factors influencing the internationalisation process of universities located in the academic periphery. Considering that internationalisation is influenced by the local contexts in which higher education institutions are situated, examining the internationalisation process of universities in peripheral regions can provide different perspectives and contribute to existing understandings of higher education internationalisation more broadly. This study investigated internationalisation of higher education in a less explored context of the Eastern part of Russia, more specifically Siberia and the Far East. Drawing upon Klemenčič’s framework for internationalisation of higher education institutions in the periphery, the study examined factors influencing internationalisation in all seven leading universities in this region that were identified by the Russian government as part of the state initiatives to modernise national higher education sector. Through document analysis of institutional strategic development plans and a series of semi-structured interviews with administrative leaders engaged in the international activities, the study sought to provide insights into how internationalisation is framed at the institutional level in response to government policies and what factors influence how internationalisation goals are realised in regional universities. The study found that inherited factors such as geographic location, history, culture and tradition influence how internationalisation plays out in higher education institutions. The findings highlight the need for more diverse policies on higher education internationalisation that recognise specific regional factors, as well as long-term institutional strategies that help create a culture supportive of internationalisation. For universities in the academic periphery, the findings suggest that more attention needs to be paid to developing their international profile and strategic international collaborations. More specifically, the study argues that rather than continuing to focus on the European West, Russian universities would benefit from ‘looking East’ and pursuing opportunities to collaborate with universities in the Asia-Pacific region.
-
ItemA framework for quality in international higher education: policy and practice in Chile as a case study( 2018)This study investigates the nature of quality in international higher education and develops a comprehensive framework for analysis, using Chile as a case study. Qualitative data is collected through document analysis, questionnaires to international experts and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in Chile. Based on an adaptive theory approach, the study constructs a framework for quality in international higher education following an iterative process that brings together the previous management theory of quality as continuous improvement and a novel theory emerging from the empirical data. This process yields an expanded and adapted framework for a bounded higher education system. This study enhances our understanding of quality in international higher education and identifies a series of factors and variables that assist in its management in a structured manner.
-
ItemAcademic staff and international engagement in Australian higher education( 2016)Australian higher education appears to be in the vanguard of internationalisation worldwide. In line with global changes to higher education, Australian universities have adopted comprehensive international strategies across their teaching, research and outreach agendas. By many measures, this strategic approach to internationalisation has been successful. Given the central role of academic staff within the life of the university, and with international strategies now touching on all aspects of a university’s activity, academic staff are important to the further internationalisation of Australian higher education. Yet little is known about the factors which influence the international engagement of Australian academics (that is, their involvement with the international dimensions of all aspects of their work) and the extent to which they consider international activities an important aspect of their academic work. This study has investigated the engagement of academic staff with the international dimensions of their work. It sought to identify the extent to which different aspects of international engagement have been integrated into contemporary understandings of academic work in Australia, as well as to examine the factors which influence academic staff choices in relation to their international engagement. Based on an Adaptive Theory approach (Layder, 1998), the research took case studies of two universities – a younger progressive university and an older research intensive university – which, between them, are broadly representative of one third of the Australian university sector. Qualitative data were collected through document analysis and in-depth interviews with thirty-seven academic staff drawn from Science and Business disciplines. The study found that the international dimensions of academic work are predominantly centred on research, despite the literature on internationalisation pointing to a more comprehensive focus and despite institutional strategies advocating for a more balanced approach to international engagement. In terms of contributions, the study has conceptualised a typology of international engagement to address the gap identified in the literature in relation to a holistic understanding of the international dimensions of academic work. Further findings are presented in relation to the influence of institutional and disciplinary context, as well as personal and individual factors. Particular to the Australian context is a finding in relation to geographic isolation, which is commonly described as both a driver and barrier to the international engagement of Australian academic staff. This study argues that institutions need to recognise the complex and interweaving nature of the factors which influence academic staff in relation to the international dimensions of their work. This recognition is important if institutions seek to foster greater international involvement amongst their academic community. In addition, institutions could review the role of leadership at the local level in fostering greater international engagement beyond research, as well as reconsider the availability of funding and technology to mitigate the barrier to international engagement of Australia’s distance from other countries.
-
ItemUnderstanding academic standards in context of the massification and internationalisation of Australian higher education( 2011)Academic standards are a central value system within higher education, but are largely abstract, diffuse and tacitly understood within institutions. With national and international demands for greater transparency, precision and accountability of academic standards, this study examines the principles and practices of setting, monitoring and assessing academic standards in a contemporary higher education setting. The study explores the notion of what is meant by academic standards and how standards are determined, implemented and measured within Australian universities. Through semi- structured interviews with policy makers and institutional leaders, as well as extensive documentary analysis, the study provides a contemporary analysis of academic standards. The study begins with a historical and linguistic analysis of standards, providing the necessary theoretical basis for understanding standards in higher education. Terms like quality, excellence and standards are interconnected, but used loosely in higher education. Within Australia, academic standards are broadly viewed as a set of implicit thresholds, consisting of many types of standards, measured with many types of criteria. However, the study finds that there is considerable diversity between processes of setting standards, processes of measuring standards and the relationships between each process. In many circumstances, the processes are tacit and often conflated. There is no consensus to what types of standard best represent academic standards, or what criterion best determines the nature and level of that standard. Historically, traditional notions of academic standards derive from small, elite cohorts of students and staff. The criteria for setting and assessing standards were socially and culturally tied to those elite traditions. In a mass, international higher education system, where institutions, students and staff are more diverse, those traditions are being tested. There is little evidence to suggest that general academic standards have declined, but the traditional dimensions and criteria by which standards are set, monitored and achieved have shifted towards outcome measures. Measuring the capabilities, skills and knowledge of graduates is becoming more important in understanding the standards of an institution. However, the instrumental ideology of measuring graduate outcomes has the potential to create narrow conceptions of what standards should be. Given the increased student diversity in a mass system, this is creating tensions in the processes of teaching, learning and assessment. The study examines how these traditional reference points have shifted and provides an analysis of the complexities and consequences that exist in a mass, international higher education environment. The findings of this research are timely and significant in view of ongoing Australian policy changes and the formation of a new national regulatory body and standards framework. The author concludes that the massification and internationalisation of Australian higher education is creating complex tensions between local, national and international criteria for determining and measuring standards. In some situations, the criteria and thresholds set at a national level are conflicting with those set at a local or international level. Comprehensive, research-intensive institutions are likely to reference themselves against the criteria and thresholds set at an international level. For other types of institutions, local and national standards still dominate, but the global reach of performance indicators and their potential impact on reputation and student demand, mean that internationally set criteria are increasingly influencing how academic standards are represented.